10 Series Perfected: GeForce GTX 1080Ti

"10: Gaming Perfected"

The landing of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti on 01.03.2017 heralds the arrival of the new gaming flagship of the Pascal line-up of graphics cards on the desktop PC. NVIDIA's CEO Jen Hsun Huang introduced the GTX 1080 Ti at the Games Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco and surprised experts and NVIDIA fans alike with the technical specifications of this high-end graphics card.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is, similar to the Titan X(P), based on the GP102 GPU and is forged using the highly-efficient 16 nm FinFET manufacturing process. In doing this the GTX 1080 Ti benefits from Micron's process optimisations, the manufacturer of the GDDR5X Video RAM utilised by the graphics card. This memory is clocked significantly faster than the memory used on the GeForce GTX 1080 and Titan X(P), thereby enabling a notable performance increase in the 11 GB GDDR5X VRAM.

Apart from the Pascal-GPU architecture and the new 16 nm FinFET manufacturing process, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 Ti deploys the new second-gen GDDR5X Video RAM. This provides up to 50% increased bandwidth compared to regular GDDR5 VRAM as well as increased clock frequencies. The 352-Bit memory interface on the GTX 1080 Ti enables a memory bandwidth of 484 GB/s. The VRAM on the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is clocked at 5.500 MHz.

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti reference design comes with a high baseclock 1.503 MHz, with a boost clock of 1.623 MHz. NVIDIA reports that the boost clock, using GPU Boost 3.0, can be overclocked to over 2.000 MHz without issues. This offers NVIDIA's partners an excellent starting point for factory overclocking when manufacturing the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti-series of graphics cards.

The power draw of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is 250 Watts and NVIDIA recommends a 600 Watt power supply. An additional 6- and 8-pin PCIe power connector supplies the "Founders Edition" (reference design) with the necessary power, while partner cards will arrive with plug configurations which vary from the reference design.

Simultaneous Multi-Projection 4.0: The GTX 1080 Ti, Optimised for VR

Simultaneous Multi-Projection 4.0 (SMP) allows the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti to conserve geometry-rendering performance by rendering multiple perspectives (known as "Viewports") in a single pass. The Pascal architecture supports up to 16 of these Viewports simultaneously. SMP is primarily of interest to users of Virtual Reality (VR) and can massively improve the performance of the GTX 1080 TI during VR-related applications when compared to its predecessors. SMP also improves the performance of multi-screen setups as well as curved displays.

An additional component of SMP 4.0 is known as Lens-Matched Shading (LMS). Since curved lenses are employed between the user's eyes and the display, this requires a careful adjustment of the picture. LMS optimises image rendering in such a way as to prevent the parts of the image which are obscured by the lenses from being rendered, thereby allowing a marked increase in performance.

Asynchronous Compute & Asynchronous Timewarp

Asynchronous Compute is the simultaneous execution of both the necessary calculations and render requests, and this is especially relevant in the context of APIs like DirectX 12 or Vulkan. As a result, faster and more efficient communication between the CPU and GPU occurs. The advent of Pascal architecture means that the GTX 1080 Ti is capable of pausing calculations and buffering them, also known as "pre-emption".

GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with Water Cooling

The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition is equipped with an optimised vapour chamber cooler which enables the graphics card to deliver high clock frequencies which are sustained over longer periods of time. Graphics card manufacturers like ASUS, MSI, EVGA and Gigabyte rely on their own custom cooler designs for the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Besides the air-cooled GTX 1080 Ti graphics cards there are also versions of the GTX 1080 Ti which are equipped with hybrid-style coolers or AiO water cooling.

For enthusiasts and modders for whom stock cooling does not suffice, several well-known manufacturers offers water cooling monoblocks for the reference GTX 1080 Ti as well as for the custom PCBs employed by board partners. These monoblocks enable the GTX 1080 Ti to be installed into custom water cooling loops. Caseking offers a range of special bundles that consist of a GTX 1080 Ti graphics card that is paired with a monoblock, as well as an optional backplate.